During the piloting of the facility, the platform will match users who have excess computing resources with users who are in need of additional computing power. The platform allows direct purchase of computing power without the involvement of an intermediary.
The PoC makes use of a “sharing economy” model mastered by AirBnB and Uber, bringing cost and efficiency benefits to enterprises. The platform is built on the Laser blockchain network created by a company which facilitates blockchain interoperability.
The PoC marketplace, built in collaboration with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, allows enterprises to buy and sell excess computing power at low cost in a secure manner. The marketplace offers a great alternative to the regular cloud services.
Commenting on the PoC, Bill Philbin, Hewlett Packard Enterprise SVP and CTO, Hybrid IT, commented
“Emerging technology may soon enable users to experiment in the sharing economy. Through a collaboration with HPE, Global Blockchain Technologies Corporation is developing a Proof-of-Concept network. The goal of the PoC network is to demonstrate how a user can monetize under-utilized storage assets by supplying them to the network, and how they can migrate existing data to the network with minimal disruption.”
The blockchain-based P2P marketplace offers three main benefits
- Security – the Laser’s collateral requirement for servicenode operators penalizes bad actors, preserving network integrity.
- Reliability – the distributed file system enables replication and recovery of data at any time. The robustness and stability of the network is ensured through autonomous tracking of the network, making disaster recovery a trivial process.
- Efficiency – the decentralized approach makes the system more efficient as intermediates are avoided completely.
Chairman of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Storage Users Group, Eskander Mirza stated
“We are thrilled to give our members the opportunity to try this ground breaking PoC, it addresses a persisting issue of supply and demand for computing resources that virtually all of the group’s members face, and it is clear that when this PoC hits the mainstream enterprise market, everybody will want to use it.”
Including the trial with the customers of HP Enterprise, the PoC will lay the foundation for a BLOC project called the Stratus Marketplace. According to Global Blockchain “Stratus will be an open-source, internet-scale P2P storage network that eliminates the risks and inefficiencies of centralized storage methods, liquidates unused capacity, and brings low-cost computing resources to enterprise users.” Stratus is scheduled to be released in Q3 2018.
Shidan Gouran, President and CEO of Global Blockchain, said
“This PoC will do for enterprise cloud services what AirBnB did for accommodations. With computing resources becoming increasingly in-demand in enterprise organizations, the ability to buy and sell excess capacity will revolutionize enterprise IT.”